


Ornaments

by cherrysprite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Morning, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, First Kiss, Friendship/Love, Gift Giving, Hugs, Idiots in Love, Jenna and David are awesome, M/M, Ornaments, Theo Raeken GETS a hug, Theo Raeken Loves Liam Dunbar, Theo Raeken Needs a Hug, Theo's First Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21937687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysprite/pseuds/cherrysprite
Summary: Since it's Theo's first Christmas spent with the Dunbar-Geyer family, he has a lot of questions, so Liam explains the importance of the traditions, a lot of which end up being about the ornaments. In the end, he gets an idea that may just push them over the edge of what Liam needs them to be, and he can't wait to see it.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 12
Kudos: 150





	Ornaments

**Author's Note:**

> HAHAHAHA!! I FINISHED A HOLIDAY FIC ON TIME!!!! HAA!
> 
> sorry. that was just unexpected.

"Hmm?"

"It's glittery. The rest aren't. They don't match."

"Good observational skills."

"Doesn't that mess up the image?"

Theo was holding a glittery red and white striped ornament, the hanger going off of his index finger, looking at it too seriously for Liam not to laugh. He just looked so uncharacteristically offended by it. "A Christmas tree isn't that serious," Liam said, taking the ornament from him and looking for a place to put it. They'd already put a bunch of basic red ornaments on the pine tree like they did every year, not that Theo would know. He still didn't get why they'd gone and put a tree in the living room, anyway. "The ornaments don't have to match. Our family doesn't do it like that."

"Isn't the point of it to look nice?" Theo asked, and Liam wasn't quite sure if it was an actual question or a criticism. He peered into the box of ornaments he'd helped Liam retrieve from deep in the attic and looked through all of them, continuously finding more and more mismatched ones. 

"It will look nice. Just in a different way. The ornaments are for all different reasons, they have meanings. Events and stuff," Liam explained. Theo held up a fragile-looking plastic drum set hanging from a string. "David played the drums in a band in college."

LIam put it on one of the unoccupied branches and made sure it was secure, vaguely aware that Theo was watching him. He didn't mind, of course; he never minded when Theo was looking at him, but he knew it was more in confusion than anything else.

He waited until Theo asked anything else before trying to explain. Soon enough, Theo pulled out another ornament and snorted. "What's this one."

Liam turned to look at him and grinned, both at the ornament and at his skeptical expression. "That was from my grandma when my parents moved into their first house," Liam said, looking at the little stepladder-shaped figure. There was even a tray of paint and some tubes of wrapping paper balanced on it. "See, it says 2002."

Theo put it on the tree, obviously very judgemental of its placement, and Liam couldn't lie and say it wasn't weirdly adorable. Theo had been like that a lot, lately. Weirdly adorable.

"Or there's this one," Liam said after rummaging through the box a little more. "Someone got it for my mom for her and David's first Christmas together." Theo looked at it with his eyebrows raised and Liam looked down at it, perplexed, before realizing what Theo was seeing. It had originally been of two polar bears, one of them working at a kissing booth (Jenna) and the other going in to give her a kiss (David) but...it _was_ an older ornament, and, well. "Okay, so maybe David's head is gone, but the sentimentality still counts." Liam placed it higher up on the tree so it wouldn't fall. Liam always grinned when he saw that one. He was getting ahead of himself, but he always imagined buying something like that for someone someday to put on their own Christmas tree, and at one point, that somebody had been Hayden, but, well...

Liam glanced at Theo, who was still looking at the headless ornament while reaching blindly for another one. Liam's heart jumped a little, and he wondered for a second if Theo was thinking about someone in particular. He snapped himself out of it when he realized he was staring. Probably not. 

Theo actually looked at the box a second later when his hand finally fell on something. He picked it up, raised it slowly, and turned to Liam with a slightly concerned expression on his face. "What _event_ is this one for?"

Liam looked at the panty-shaped ornament that Theo was dangling off his fingers by the hanger and his face burned. "We don't talk about that one. Put it back in the box."

"Yes sir," Theo laughed, tossing it back in and going back for a different one. "You have any of these?"

"Uh, yeah. That one was from Scott the year I got bitten," Liam said, referring to the wolf pawprint in Theo's hand. "There's another one from when I went on vacation in Tennessee, one to commemorate my first win as captain of the lacrosse team, and one for my first Christmas."

At that, Theo paused his rummaging abruptly and turned to Liam. "Wait," He said. "You're telling me there's a baby Liam one in here?" Liam groaned at the snarky and mischievously excited face Theo wore. He could only watch in exasperation as the chimera began to go faster through the box in search of it, already getting his phone out to mock it. "Snowglobe, snowglobe, snowglobe, snowflake...Baby's First Christmas!" Theo exclaimed, pulling out a metal book-shaped ornament. He opened it and grinned wider. Liam already knew what the picture was, a shot of him at around three months old on a chair too big for him looking mildly uncomfortable in a Christmas outfit. Yes, Jenna had to go and dress him up in a Christmas outfit. He knew that one was going to come back and bite him in the ass one day. Proving his point, Theo snapped a picture as he held it open and snickered.

"Good luck. Everyone you could send that to has already seen it," Liam said triumphantly, snatching it from him and grinning smugly.

"Not Jaclyn," Theo responded just as snarkily, and Liam paused. His grip on the ornament loosened as the muscles in his shoulders and back tensed instead. 

"...Jaclyn?" Liam asked as casually as possible, fighting to keep his voice steady. 

"Yeah, from work. You've met her before, remember? She was at Nathan's Halloween party, the one dressed like Mia Wallace," Theo said, taking out another ornament and putting it on the tree without question.

That _did_ ring a bell to Liam. He was just hoping that they weren't thinking of the same person. Liam had just kind of tuned out the fact that Theo had felt the need to bring someone to a party who wasn't him, especially since Jaclyn was...well, Jaclyn was hot, to say the least. From what Liam knew of her, she was sarcastic and witty and Theo always seemed to have a good time around her, so yeah, he was really hoping that she wasn't the person he was referring to. She was probably just Theo's type. The exact _opposite_ of him. "Oh, yeah," Liam said carefully. "...She's pretty."

That was a fact anyone could see, even one deeply in love with someone else, but it still bothered Liam when Theo took a second and then agreed. His voice was measured as he said "...yeah," for what Liam presumed was jealousy. Perfect.

He shook the thought away and went back to decorating the tree, and for awhile, things went quiet between the two of them. Theo didn't ask anymore questions. 

"I'm not bringing her to Christmas Eve," Theo said out of the blue a few minutes later, talking about the party the pack always had the night before. 

Liam nodded casually, but as he turned away, he couldn't help but smile.

___

A few weeks later, Liam was sitting awake at seven in the morning, ready for Christmas day. All of the presents he had gotten for Theo and his parents were sitting under the tree, one in particular on top of Theo's pile that he was most excited for him to open. 

He'd been thinking about it, and he decided that on top of things Theo wanted and some things he needed, he should get him something that had some meaning to it as well. He'd spent the last few weeks leading up to Christmas explaining the different customs their family and many others had, but it had all kind of come back to the ornaments for the most part. Theo seemed genuinely interested in why they had a fishbowl shaped one (to commemorate their short-lived first pet before Jenna relented and let Liam get a cat) next to a cat (the same one that had come after the fish, Toast, who was probably laying under the tree with the gifts at that very moment) and all the other ones. 

Liam realized that the ornaments had a lot more meaning than he had thought of before. None of them were necessarily random at all, with the exception of the basic red and silver balls that hung as fillers. All three of them, Jenna, David, and Liam, plus their pets even had a couple, so why wouldn't Theo? He was important. He was special. Hell, he was _incredibly_ special, not only to Liam, but to all of them. He deserved a place on the tree with everyone else. 

Liam had figured an ornament would get the point across without specifically implying anything in particular. It wasn't the kissing booth ornament or anything, that's for sure, so it would either go decently well or do nothing at all. Still, a momento with a tiny framed polaroid of the two of them and Theo's definite tendency to not-so-secretly overthink could just be the perfect equation. Still, he was ready for whatever happened. He wasn't expecting either of them to just start professing their undying love to each other next to the buffet table or anything, but it was certainly an idea Liam would look into more during his daydreams. In fact, he might start on that one while he was waiting.

"Are you really that excited for Christmas?" Theo asked skeptically, Liam's ears picking up his voice from his room across the hall. He startled and tried to calm his racing heartbeat when he realized that Theo could hear it. "Jesus."

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Liam got out of bed and went to open his door, only to find that Theo was doing the same, and damn him, really, because Theo had the audacity to still be putting on a shirt when he came out, tan abs all on display for Liam to want to worship. _Worship??_ Fuck. Liam cleared his throat instead of ogling and made his way to the kitchen.

Liam was surprised to find his mom and stepdad already up and waiting for them, David at the counter drinking some coffee and Jenna checking all the food in the fridge for the guests they'd be hosting that day. "Good morning, sunshine," Jenna said. "I'm talking about Theo. Liam, your hair looks like a birds' nest."

Theo glanced over at him and smirked. "It does," he agreed, elbowing him in the ribs, to which he just got a hard shove, narrowly avoiding the edge of the kitchen table. "Ow, okay, okay!"

"Calm down," David sighed, nodding towards the living room. "I know you guys want to get started. I'm not awake before eleven for nothing."

Liam refrained from bounding towards the living room like a rabbit since Theo was there, but it wasn't as hard as he was expecting. He wanted to walk next to Theo anyway. Their hands kept brushing, especially when they had to walk through two doorways through the dining room together, and it made Liam feel a little warmer on the cold morning.

They settled down on the carpet in front of the tree across from each other, and Jenna and David sat on the couch nearby. Liam passed them both their boxes over the coffee table before they went to their own, and he looked at Theo intently. The older boy looked slightly overwhelmed and like he was waiting for instruction, and Liam laughed a little. "Just open something."

Liam wanted to see Theo open his first, which was a small-ish box that was from Jenna and David. He did it so meticulously and carefully that you could have thought he was trying to reuse the wrapping paper like his old aunt Linda did, and Liam snorted when he realized that he might think that was actually the case. Theo glared at him, but started to unwrap it with less care. Inside was a grey beanie, and Theo smiled.

"Liam said you lost yours awhile back," Jenna explained as Theo put it on and grinned at her. "In the hospital? Or something?" 

Theo and Liam looked at each other and tried not to laugh. While Jenna and David knew about the supernatural after Melissa had pretty much forced them to explain it, they'd conveniently left out the part where the majority of the town wanted to kill them. They'd figured that it would spare a few of their parents' friendships to just not know that at one point they had tried to murder their teenage son. "Thank you," Theo said. "It's great." He adjusted the hat on his head, which looked slightly out of place with his pajama pants and sweater, but Liam saw no issues with it. 

He just loved seeing Theo smile that much.

They opened the rest of their presents, thanking each other accordingly and talking about them as they did. From his parents, Liam got a new computer game, a small bluetooth speaker, some shirts and pants, a pair of shoes, and the customary weirdly festive but also weirdly comfortable socks, and Theo got about the same with the exception of the game. He got a book of puzzles, since Liam had noticed that Theo was somewhat of an old man with his puzzle games on his phone and in the magazines Jenna read and poked fun of it to his mom. Theo seemed to like it enough, even if it was kind of a ridicule.

Liam had purposely left the two that Theo got him for last, and it seemed like Theo did the same, since they were both reaching for boxes with different wrapping paper when they looked over at each other. Theo had kind of a sparkle of interest in his eye and he paused, silently telling Liam to go first.

Liam was too proud to admit to anyone but himself, and quietly, that his heart was jumping as he opened the first one. It was heavy to pick up, and flat, so he got a good idea of what it was before he pulled off the layer of wrapping paper. Still, he was surprised to see the hard cover of the book, shiny and new. _Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed._ "Theo, what-?"

"I thought you might like that," Theo said, one corner of his mouth upturned in a smile, and he rested his hands on his folded legs. 

"I mentioned this once, like, two months ago," Liam said, unable to keep the wonder out of his voice. "How did you remember?"

At that, Theo flushed a little pink, and Liam thought he was going to actually die right on the carpet. "I, uh," He stammered, obviously embarrassed of his words. "You seemed to want it a lot. Guess it just came to me."

Liam smiled down at the cover and then up at Theo, loving the look on his face that he found. "Thank you," He said genuinely. "Here, you go next. That one's not nearly as thoughtful, but..."

"No, I like it!" Theo assured when he tore the paper off, finding a game called _Exploding Kittens_ underneath. "I've wanted to try this! We can play a game after breakfast."

Theo prompted him to open his last one, which was a shirt with a reference to the show they watched together, New Girl. Liam smiled at him as he put the shirt down back in its box, motioning to the small gift that was halfway under the tree that Theo had yet to open.

He watched with great intent, his heart going a little faster than it should, as Theo undid the ribbon that he had haphazardly tied on as well as he could. The chimera didn't seem to mind the messiness, even when he found that Liam had had to tape it all down like Fort Knox to make up for the shitty wrapping job. "Jesus, Liam, it's a four by four inch square," David scoffed as he watched Theo struggle, but Theo just waved him off.

The top of the box came off, revealing nothing but two sheets of white tissue paper that Theo pulled away softly, figuring out that it was something fragile. Liam watched closely at Theo's expression when he saw what was inside, and he could only be pleased as Theo's lips parted slightly with recognition. 

It was kind of a mix over a few seconds. First, his lips parting when he realized what it was, then the slight crease between his eyebrows that he always got when he was thinking. He lifted the flat, square ornament out of the box and held it like it was precious, his eyes quickly flitting over every detail of it, most importantly, the picture inside. Liam had chosen that one after hours of consideration over the fifty-some photos that had Theo in them, courtesy of Corey and being addicted to the polaroid camera he was a proud owner of that he took to every function. This one had been taken when the pack had visited a lake for no reason in the summer and just spent the day there to unwind. Liam and Theo had just seen Nolan push Alec into the water, so they were still laughing when Corey prompted them to get a picture. Theo had a completely unguarded, perfectly stunning smile on his face, eyes crinkled with laughter as he looked at the camera, but by the time the shutter had gone off, Liam was still looking at Theo. Even Liam could tell that it was the most lovestruck expression he'd ever worn. 

Lips parted, eyebrows creased, then a small smile. "What is it, honey?" Jenna asked, genuinely wondering what her son had been so worked up about involving Theo's gift over the past week or so. 

"It's an ornament," Theo said, still looking at it with a certain softness in his eyes that made Liam go weak. David and Jenna looked at each other before Liam. Their son was still gazing at Theo like he was waiting for him to say something, but Theo was for once in his life speechless.

"Hang it up!" Jenna encouraged with a smile on her face, and Theo didn't take his eyes off of it as he did. It took a second, but his eyes finally met Liam's in the end. The air in Liam's lungs was punched out of him at the look on his face. Jesus.

"I just...we were looking at all the ornaments and I realized that you didn't have any," Liam explained sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thought you should have a place like everyone else does."

__

After the wrapping paper was all gathered up and thrown out and the gifts were put into neater piles on the coffee table to be put in their new places later, Liam stood in the living room idly. He pet the cat on the head when she came to wind around his feet, but she walked over to Theo instead, showing a lot more enthusiasm for him than Liam. Liam scoffed, fake-offended, and let his eyes travel up from Theo's feet to his face. 

He was holding his phone, leaning against a wall, and smiling, which made Liam's heart fall a little. Probably Jaclyn telling him an impressive and witty one-liner. Liam wished his texts made him laugh like that, not that he would be around to see them, anyway.

Oh well. Liam went into the kitchen in search of whatever food he could snag from what Jenna was putting out. He wasn't supposed to eat anything until the guests, the majority of which was his family who all knew what a pig he was, got there, but he stole a roll from the plastic bag full of them and bit into it. David, who was passing through, gave him a knowing look, but Liam didn't have much time to think about it before he sensed Theo's presence nearby, the familiar scent of wood and vanilla then next to him.

"Hey," Theo said, putting his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants. "How are you?"

"...Hungry," Liam said honestly while chewing, holding up the roll in his hand. He swallowed a little too early when Theo grabbed his wrist, but it was just to steady the roll so he could rip off a piece. The chimera smirked at him as he stuffed it in his mouth, one cheek puffing out. "How's your first Christmas going for you?"

"Good, so far," Theo said. "It still seems a little weird to me, all this, but I like it. I liked this morning," He explained. "I liked your present."

"I liked your's."

"Yeah, but I like...really liked yours," Theo said, and Liam was somewhat taken aback. He didn't know if he had heard Theo's voice that vulnerable before. There was a beat of silence and a much harder beat of Liam's heart, and he took that as his chance to keep talking.

"I, uh," Liam started and cursed himself internally for immediately fucking up. "Yeah. I thought it was important that you had an ornament, since looking at them all with you kinda had me thinking. They all have some kind of meaning to them, y'know? Like with my parents' first Christmas and mine. You're important. Why wouldn't you have one?"

Theo looked like he didn't quite know what to say. He had the same expression as he had when he first opened the box, and his fingers curled and uncurled at his sides while he looked at Liam with question. Liam knew that the only thing that worked when someone was standing like that was offer them a hug, but with Theo, it was more of a force.

He came forward and wrapped his arms around Theo's biceps softly, resting his head on his shoulder. He felt Theo tense up, and for a second he was afraid that he had read everything wrong, that Theo was already overwhelmed with anxiety by all of what Liam just said, but he was too far in to pull away. Deciding to savor the time he had like this, warm and just with him, he took a deep breath in of Theo's scent and squeezed him a little tighter.

Liam was about to pull away when Theo's heartbeat got too fast to be normal, but Theo moved. His arms came up about as high as they could go and wrapped around Liam's middle, pulling him closer, and Liam's knees went liquid-weak, convinced that if Theo let go of him, he would collapse to the floor. He felt everything; Theo's fingers lacing together behind his back, him trying not to let Liam notice the soft, small strokes of his his thumb against his shirt, Theo's nose in the crook of his neck, the heartbeat that sounded so loud, so strong, so comforting now that it was so close. He could feel _Theo_ , and he could cry. 

He wished he could hold Theo and be held forever, but he did the right thing and began to back up. He took his face out of Theo's shoulder with another deep inhale, desperately but slowly trying to get air back into his lungs without diminishing Theo's smell, and Theo did the same. Still, Liam didn't want to let go of him.

He didn't.

Theo didn't either. It was unspoken for a second, just that they didn't want to leave yet, but Liam felt the chimera looking at the side of his face, and he was done for as soon as he met his eyes.

He'd never seen those green eyes that he'd daydreamed over so many times look the way they did then, shiny and full of question, dark, almost. Just like he was while they hugged, Liam was slammed with the desire to stare into them for as long as he was allowed. Which wasn't long. Theo's eyes flitted down to his lips, and Liam felt his heart jump into his throat.

He didn't know who moved first, but he did know that they slowly moved towards each other. It took their noses to bump before Theo finally closed the distance, took what Liam was too scared to, and their lips met. It was an almost immediate response; Liam shuddered and gasped against his mouth and kissed him back harder, firmer, and his grip around Theo's body slipped down to his waist to tug him closer. Theo's lips moved against his fervently, and Liam felt Theo's hands move up to his face, making him repress a small noise when his face was suddenly cupped by two hot brands holding it still. Liam was right when he thought he would collapse without Theo holding him up, because his knees were going weak, faster than he could help it, and Theo moved one of his hands so he could hold him around the back.

Theo pulled away for air for just a second, and Liam was met with shiny eyes before being kissed again, this time with no hesitation at all. Liam smiled into it, his arms going to wrap around Theo's neck. There was less fear in this one, no absolute desperation like they thought the other was going to disappear under them, but no less passionate. Liam ran his tongue along the seam of Theo's lips, pulling Theo impossibly closer so they were flush, and they were about to open for him when he was startled by the sound of something being set down on the counter. 

They jumped away, still holding each other, but with eyes widened with shock and fear. Theo turned his head as Liam looked straight. It was just Jenna setting down her blue mixing bowl, getting ready to start. "Don't mind me," She said like she hadn't just seen her son aggressively making out with one of his best friends. "Carry on."

Yeah, like they were gonna do that.

Well, they were. Just...not there.

Liam hid a smile and grabbed Theo's hand, pulling him down the hallway until they were alone in Theo's bedroom before he started laughing. "Shush," Theo said, but Liam could hear the smile in his voice as his eyes were shut. It took a second, but Liam could feel the laughter bubbling up in Theo's chest as he rested his head against it, and he found just as breathtaking of a smile. "Thank you," Theo said softly when they calmed down, resting their foreheads together.

"For what?"

Theo rolled his eyes before he kissed him again sweetly, chuckling when Liam tried to follow his lips. "For that..." He said. "And for everything."

"Boys! If you're done making out, come test the meatballs!" David yelled from the kitchen, and Theo and Liam both groaned. That hadn't taken long to get around. 

They made a point of it to hold hands as they passed by the tree into the kitchen, and Liam didn't miss how Theo's eyes lingered on the Polaroid. 

Yeah. In Liam's history of being an excellent gift-giver, that was definitely his best.

Theo's grip on his hand just proved it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and merry Christmas to the readers who celebrate! It's Christmas Eve where I am, but if you're celebrating already, have fun! Don't read too much fanfic ;)
> 
> The ornaments described in this came straight off of my Christmas tree...except for the panty one. If you want to see kind of what I had in mind with Theo and Liam's polaroid, there's a link here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/391039180130444276/?lp=true . It's not exactly what I was picturing, but you can get the jist.
> 
> I have a tumblr! Come request prompts and yell at me there: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/emmas-scribbles
> 
> Once again, thank you for reading, and have a happy holiday!! Comments are always appreciated <3


End file.
